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State Police patrol cars get revamped look, with color change and new wording

One of the new gray-color scheme Pennsylvania State Police patrol vehicles was on display at the PSP station near Carlisle recently. The Carlisle station is the first PSP station in the Troop H region to have both the current color scheme and new gray-color scheme vehicles in its fleet, PSP says.

Pennsylvania State Police is gradually changing the color of its 1,112 marked patrol vehicles from white to gray.

The change is being phased in over the next three years. As cruisers now on the road reach the end of their serviceable life — about 100,000 miles, PSP says — they will be replaced with a gray car in the new scheme, the State Police announced last month.

The change is to make the state police vehicles more “identifiable for the public and for the department,” State Police said.

Another goal is for the public to associate the color of the patrol vehicle with the color of the state trooper uniform. The word “Trooper” is also being made larger on the vehicles as part of the change.

The new design was completed by an internal committee composed of members from the State Police bureaus of research and development, training and education, patrol, and staff services.

The first “marked” patrol cars were white in color starting in 1937, with the hoods later being painted black to cut down on the glare of the sun.

The current color scheme was adopted in 1991.

Phasing in the change over three years will save money and is more efficient because patrol vehicles will not be taken out of service to be repainted.

The department has an annual vehicle appropriation budget of approximately $11 million. Vehicles are sold at auction after being taken out of service, typically upon reaching 100,000 miles.